I know there are strong views on all sides of this issue, but the debate needs to be respectful. Ad hominen attacks, passive-aggressive language and insults aren't cool. Quizzical and Susan, you need to dial it back a bit. Please stick to the issue and try to keep the personal out of it.

uh the thread title refers to the position defense of the nordic model and the right to defend it.

susan u have no probs whining if you think people aren't behaving right in the sex worker forum.

you are so bullying you and your peeps it's sickening!!!!! notice all feminists who don't agree with you have stopped posting? we'll i'm sure your happy you spout your line no probs now.....

have at it!!!! i'm done with being bullied.

Debating is not bullying, quizzical. You have to be prepared to defend (as the title suggests) your stance in the face of opposition who also come prepared to defend their stance. If your argument (in praise of the nordic model) can't stand up to the face of actual facts, data and research, then it is at fault, not you and not anyone who opposes your opinion. Because if you don't have actual data and real research, but are simply going by gut reaction, that is fine, but don't expect others to simply agree with you, because you haven't presented a case to them.

Actual Swedish people are opposed to this law and have done intensive research and study on the effects of the law, and they have the same opinion about it as I do. Norway adopted the law with the prior government, and they are presently planning to remove it from their laws, as creating more harm than good.

If people who work and live under the laws are telling you it is no good, and people who live and work in Canada under the present laws are telling you it is no good, and people in NZ for example who have created another model altogether are telling you it works, and is effective, which is primarily what you want any law to do, then i don't see how you can reasonably expect others to fall in line with your demands that they defend a model that doesn't work. And then there are the Americans who work under the conditions that you may wish exists in all countries, and that certainly doesn't work either.

So people like Susan and the pro sex work advocates are simply saying, give us something that actually works, we can deal with that, but if you even think about planning to do that, then you have better ASK US about it first. That is what NZ did, and that is why the NZ model actually works, for everyone. It has reduced the NIMBY nuisance of sex workers, and has provided better working conditions for those who choose to do it.

Some women choose to be fashion models. That industry tells them they are useless if they weigh more than 100 pounds, and when they do a runway show, they are expected to be expressionless, without personality, or emotions. Some fashion models have died thru drug addiction, due to their lifestyle choices. Some fashion models have been seriously injured or killed by men who became obsessed with them or their partners. Some sex workers also have these problems. You can't isolate one group of women and say they have problems because of the work they do, but not another group of women are somehow blameless because the reality is that sometimes it is enough to just be female in order to have someone hurt you. Regardless of age, race or occupation, just showing up and being female is enough.

i can't be bothered. ya'll act like your evidence is the only evidence holding water. and have a host of reasons why the nordic model is not good which i don't believe upon examination. just as you say you don't believe the nordic model.

you all have to try and silence peeps while i see no one trying to do the same from this side. by this measure i can't be bothered and will just sit back and support the deserved criminalization of john's and pimps.

oh wait......one more thing. again i will note NEW ZEALAND has the highest rates of violence against women in the world and the Netherlands are having to report to the UN of their treatment. why would i support any law they've used to further the dispicable attitude of theirs against women?!!!! i wouldn't and won't.

Catharine MacKinnon puts prostitution in a wider context in Prostitution and Civil Rights: "The legal right to be free from torture and cruel and inhuman or degrading treatment is recognized by most nations and is internationally guaranteed. In prostitution, women are tortured through repeated rape and in all the more conventionally recognized ways. Women are prostituted precisely in order to be degraded and subjected to cruel and brutal treatment without human limits; it is the opportunity to do this that is exchanged when women are bought and sold for sex."

and

"[In the past, we had a women's] movement which understood that the choice to be beaten by one man for economic survival was not a real choice, despite the appearance of consent a marriage contract might provide. ...Yet now we are supposed to believe, in the name of feminism, that the choice to be fucked by hundreds of men for economic survival must be affirmed as a real choice, and if the woman signs a model release there is no coercion there."

who used melissa farely whoever she is? i never used a quote of hers. typical of you peeps though... don't discuss the reality of things just use propaganda to silence peeps who think your wrong.

just silliness on "when in fact from the inside it's not happening"!!!!! if it wasn't happening life in prositution world would be wonderful and none of you would be fighting for what you call legalization for safety reasons. ya ya we know you want to paint it as a great job!!! it's not!

oh and disparaging former prostitutes who don't agree with you or susan is shameful!!!!!!!!

Catharine MacKinnon puts prostitution in a wider context in Prostitution and Civil Rights: "The legal right to be free from torture and cruel and inhuman or degrading treatment is recognized by most nations and is internationally guaranteed. In prostitution, women are tortured through repeated rape and in all the more conventionally recognized ways. Women are prostituted precisely in order to be degraded and subjected to cruel and brutal treatment without human limits; it is the opportunity to do this that is exchanged when women are bought and sold for sex."

and

"[In the past, we had a women's] movement which understood that the choice to be beaten by one man for economic survival was not a real choice, despite the appearance of consent a marriage contract might provide. ...Yet now we are supposed to believe, in the name of feminism, that the choice to be fucked by hundreds of men for economic survival must be affirmed as a real choice, and if the woman signs a model release there is no coercion there."

So you are taking the stance that sex between a man and a woman is rape for the woman, as in violence, as your argument?

It does not resolve the problem that in countries where sex work is illegal the level of violence towards sex workers is increased versus countries that regulate it.

Basically, it doesn't matter if you prefer the wording of something that is based in false data, the challenge for you was to present real hard evidence. Of which you have not done. I have not seen statistics that tell us, using the entire sex worker population, not just the selectively marginalized street workers, of what goes on. i have seen people who are not part of that 10% speak up and tell you stories that contradict your quotes here, so other than that what can you tell me?

Being someone who does go to the trouble of reading the links presented as evidence, i see a quote there from Melissa Farley, who has been debunked as a researcher and who additionally the SCC refused to hear present. So I am not sure how someone who falsifies data and is seen by her peers to be a bad researcher and collector of 'data' to be used in an article against sex work, well, it is lame.

These articles also base on the presumption of exploitation and the idealogy of 'bought and sold for sex', like it is a thing that you can, from the outside, decide is happening. When in fact, from the inside, it is not happening, and you are told this, many times over, by a variety of people, you have fingers firmly stuck in ears while singing lalalala

In 2009, the National Bureau of Investigation estimated that there were about 90 Thai massage parlours in Stockholm and vicinity, most of which were judged to be offering sexual services for sale. At the turn of 2011/2012, the number of Thai massage parlours in the Stockholm area was estimated to be about 250 and throughout the country about 450.

Now, what kind of “successful ban” leads to an almost threefold increase in one type of provider of the banned thing in less than three years? If the estimate is accurate, this statistic alone ought to put paid to any claim that the law is an effective deterrent. An industry that has lost a lot of its customers couldn’t possibly expand at a rate like that. (See previous post on this topic here.)

The report goes on to shed an interesting light on the Swedish view of sex workers who choose their occupation – in particular, those who aren’t from Sweden. It states:

In February 2011, the police authority in the county of Halland decided to deport a Romanian woman … . Police authorities said that the woman, who made her living through prostitution, constituted a threat to public order and security. The woman appealed to the Swedish Migration Board who made the same assessment as the police authority in Halland: namely that prostitution is indeed legal in Sweden, but the purchase of sexual services is a criminal offence. This means in practice that a crime has to be committed under Swedish law to enable a person engaged in prostitution to support themselves.

This decision was ultimately thrown out in court as a breach of EU freedom of movement, but subsequently the Justice Ombudsman, considering the case of another EU sex worker, upheld the Migration Board’s position:

“…prostitution is to be regarded as a dishonest means of support according to the law. Prostitution – which can not occur without a crime having been committed – may also be considered as a prohibited occurrence in one principal element. Unlike the judgement in a previous determination by the Ombudsman for Justice, which related to begging, deportation in this case is considered to be compatible with the Aliens Act.”

This demonstrates a point which is well-made by Norwegian criminologist May-Len Skilbrei here: just because it isn’t a crime to sell sex doesn’t mean a person can do so without facing the strong arm of the law. If the State makes it a policy that sex work is something that cannot be tolerated, its officers will fight it with whatever means they have at their disposal: immigration laws, housing laws (as in Norway’s notorious “Operation Homeless”), public order laws (same link; see also the French bill which explicitly allows such laws to be used against street workers); Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (the reversal of which was deemed “frustrating” by a Swedish model-supporting Irish parliamentarian), custody laws (with tragic consequences last year) and probably anything else you can think of, short of actually prohibiting the sale of sexual services. And these have a similar effect as prohibiting the sale of sexual services, namely, giving sex workers an incentive to avoid state officials or anyone they think might rat them out to state officials (including the police and health and social services). In this context, the distinction between the Swedish model and one which directly criminalises the sale of sex is a distinction without all that much of a difference.

….. will just sit back and support the deserved criminalization of john's and pimps.

Me too. I'm very relieved that the "mythical" Nordic Model will most likely be followed rather than the criminalization of prostitutes.

It would still be nice if people were allowed to properly explore the issue instead of blindly supporting the neoliberal model for prostitution. Women "willingly" prostituting themselves for drugs should be offered drug replacement therapy not outdoor stalls for servicing. I can't believe they call treating women like animals "harm reduction".

fortunate wrote:

It does not resolve the problem that in countries where sex work is illegal the level of violence towards sex workers is increased versus countries that regulate it.

If that were true you would be willing to have a thread on the topic to support your statement. I dare you.

susan davis wrote:

this thread is another example of assumptions with no reference material at all....

In Sweden this is embodied by the Aliens Act, which forbids foreign women from selling sex in Sweden and is used by the police to apprehend non-Swedish or migrant persons suspected of selling sex. This reveals the limits of the rhetoric of female victimisation, with clients framed as perpetrators: if the seller is foreign, she is to blame, and can be punished with deportation.......

....The increased control the Norwegian police exert on prostitution markets so as to identify clients includes document checks on women involved in prostitution so as to find irregulars among them. Raids performed in the name of rescue often end with vulnerable women who lack residence permits being deported from Norway.

A number of the workers who were arrested appeared before the Immigration and Refugee Board on Friday for a mandatory review of their detention. Five workers were ordered to stay in detention, while a sixth was released on conditions. (Non-sex workers)

The Nordic Model does not claim to protect illegal economic immigrants from deportation and there is no reason that it should. Neither does New Zealand. All countries deport illegal economic immigrants.

In recent years there has been a steady increase in human traffi cking for sexual purposes within the EU. There may be a number of reasons for this. The enlargement of the EU and the abolition of visa requirements for citizens of the new accession coun-tries has made it easier for human traffi ckers to recruit and transport particularly vulnerable young women and girls, to be exploited for sexual purposes in EU member countries. The increase may also be due to certain countries within the EU opening up legal prostitution markets. During the same period, the diffi cult economic situation in certain European countries such as Spain, Italy and Greece, has led to a deterioration in opportunities for profi ting from the prostitution markets in these countries. Traffi ckers and pimps looked instead to new and more fi nancially profitable markets in the Netherlands and Germany, but also in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden.

The law came into effect in 1998. A change that occurred in the last 3 years cannot be attributed to the law. You don't even have correlation nevermind causation.

This thread hasn't been about the Nordic model for a long time. When there is a thread that is actually about the Nordic Model I will engage your arguments more fully. Here it is a waste of time because the conversation is buried in a pile of dung. Let me know when you are willing to have a thread that stays on topic.

If by on topic you mean that the acceptable comments are only in support of defending an indefensible model, then yes, you will have trouble staying on topic.

If by 'blog' you mean that you did not click on the link and see that it was carrying an actual copy of an APA report complaint about Melissa Farley, that is unfortunate. I assume you did click the links of the university website articles? Also against the Swedish law, but by people who've actually studied the topic, and not the ones trying to market it to other countries?

Here is another link that may go unchecked, but is only 6 pages, so not terribly taxing.

This one prior to the SCC ruling sets as it's recommendations that, based on the idea of the Nordic model, the laws the SCC struck down need to be struck down in the interest of safety.

Rights and Reason: The Way ForwardIn Canada and in Sweden, both approaches for regulating sex work violate sex workers’ security of the person (Section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms). The Swedish model is harmful for sex workers because it denies them control over their working conditions and impedes their ability to practise their profession safely and without risk to their bodily integrity. This was recognized by the Global Commission on HIV and the Law, which released a report in 2012 denouncing the Swedish model.

In the report, the Global Commission found that “[s]ince its enactment in 1999, the law has not improved — indeed, it has worsened — the lives of sex workers” and noted that “the sex trade may now be more violent.”13 There is also increasing evidence in Canada of the vicious consequences of client sweeps on sex workers, a foreseeable consequence should the Swedish model be applied in Canada.

Both approaches also entrench and exacerbate stigma against sex workers and constrain their access to legal recourse by institutionalizing an adversarial relationship between sex workers and the police. Sex workers who report a violent experience risk incriminating not only themselves but their employer, colleagues and clients, leading to a loss of work, income and potentially child custody. Reporting a violent incident may also mean that police harass and target a sex worker and the men she is in personal relationships with for arrest, because theyassume that those men are her clients.

Sex workers are consequently dissuaded from reporting violence against them, creating a climate of impunity which fosters and fuels further violence. This is especially true for sex workers who work on the street, and who already face horrific violence, stigma and disproportionate criminalization. Introducing the Swedish model in Canada would force sex workers on the street to continue to work in isolation in order to avoid their clients’ arrest.The dangerous and potentially fatal consequences of criminalizing the purchase of sex outweigh any questionable benefits that might arise.

The courts and Parliament owe a responsibility to sex workers to ensure that one deadly — and unconstitutional — regime is not replaced with another. Rather than imposing the Swedish model on sex workers in Canada, Parliament should meaningfully consult with sex workers about the best ways to protect their human rights and promote secure working conditions, which necessarily includes the repeal of the prostitution-related offences of the Criminal Code. This approach is a far more effective way of addressing exploitation in the sex industry than one already proven not to work.

who used melissa farely whoever she is? i never used a quote of hers. typical of you peeps though... don't discuss the reality of things just use propaganda to silence peeps who think your wrong.

just silliness on "when in fact from the inside it's not happening"!!!!! if it wasn't happening life in prositution world would be wonderful and none of you would be fighting for what you call legalization for safety reasons. ya ya we know you want to paint it as a great job!!! it's not!

oh and disparaging former prostitutes who don't agree with you or susan is shameful!!!!!!!!

If you had read the link that you refer to as 'here' you most definitely have referenced Melissa Farley and her falsified reports.

Plus the entire prostitutionresearch.com site was created by her. And since we know she deliberately writes articles with falsified information in order to reach preset conclusions, we therefore by extension, have to discount anyone else's articles posted there. We have no idea what kind of editing she did, as the site owner, before the article you link to was posted.

There is 115 pages of a complaint written about her 'work', and many many people refer to her studies and research in their own arguments. You cannot refer to them without referring to this as well.

If that were true you would be willing to have a thread on the topic to support your statement. I dare you.

I doubt that i need to have an entire thread. The moderator of babble has determined that starting new threads for things that are not new topics will be locked down.

For whether what i said is true or not? See every link that discusses the real effect of the Swedish ban on the purchase of sexual services. Every single one of them reports that sex workers are talking about increased danger.

I dare you to show me otherwise

lol

\

If something in the research reports doesn't agree to agree with the idealogy that the Nordic model is successful, it doesn't mean that those articles are deflection and hidden by personal attacks. If abolitionists could be silenced, there would be no problem. They cannot defend their position, so they resort to deflection and personal attacks that's all. It is too bad that they rely on false data manipulated by people like Melissa Farley, but there is overwhelming evidence that contradicts their claims. What the real problem is that they don't get paid if they admit that.

There is plenty of reference material it's just buried by the tactics of deflection and personal attacks used to silence abolitionists.

Concerning the scurrilous attack in the article you referenced, it is easily debunked:

Deporting illegal economic migrants is not "blame and punishment" for sex work.

In New Zealand, poster child for legalization,

wrote:

"sex work is also prohibited for those on temporary visas, and immigration for and investment in sex work is prohibited."

Sex work is prohibited by those on temporary visas, like tourist and student visas in NZ. I'm shocked really, shocked. Like every other country in the world is OK with someone coming into the country on false pretenses, then goes gets a job somewhere and overstays their visa. Like that never happens in the ski industry, hotel, restaurants, or anything else. Like there isn't already laws that deal with people who do this, no matter what they are doing to make their money illegally.

You quote but don't comment on the report that indicates that in spite of the 'success' of the Nordic model, people continue to travel to Norway and Sweden to do sex work. Even tho they can't get a work visa to do this, and even tho their customers are commiting criminal acts to do so.

You kind of make my point: the Swedish model is a collossal failure. It has failed to stop the flow of traffick, it has failed to protect the sex workers, and it has failed to stop sex work at all. It makes me wonder what exactly you think it is going to do if brought in here (which is unlikely, since it is not going to withstand any charter challenge to criminalize clients of using the services of sex workers who are not criminals in providing those same services.

I just keep trying to bring you back to the facts, the research and away from the false and deliberately misleading opinion pieces, and suggest that maybe while you believe wholeheartedly in the NIMBY of sex work and sex workers, at the end of the day, if there are no new laws, your life will carry on with no change. Whether clients are charged as criminals or not, there will be no impact on your life as it is today. So, I can see why you are heavily invested in having others follow along your POV on this issue. After all, out of sight, out of mind. It must be irritating that some are actually in your backyard, waving their placards and handing out leaflets right now :)

It is OK, most women have experienced shaming by other women, whether they are sex workers or simply pretty or maybe wanted to stay home and raise their children. Most women will carry on to do what is best for them in spite of those negative nannies. This would be an appropriate place to insert a funny picture with the caption "What about the children!!??"

It is OK, most women have experienced shaming by other women, whether they are sex workers or simply pretty or maybe wanted to stay home and raise their children. Most women will carry on to do what is best for them in spite of those negative nannies. This would be an appropriate place to insert a funny picture with the caption "What about the children!!??"

Margaret Thatcher would be proud. "There is no such thing as a society. There are only individual men andwomen", she said. And your words here echo her sentiments exactly. We are all just individuals floating around in vacuums. Society does not influence our choices, no no. If a woman "chooses" to stay home with her children she has in no way been influenced by thousands of years of intense societal expectation and pressure to do so. No, she just came up with that idea all on her own. And if a woman "chooses" to sell her body for men to use sexually, she also just came up with that idea all on her own. All that she had been taught since she was a little girl, all of those fairy tales, advertisements, tv shows, etc. that taught her a woman's primary concern should be to be pretty and sexy, they had no influence on her at all. She just thought of that stuff all herself.

Question: why are you reading a leftist news site? Your arguments are clearly rooted in right wing neoliberal ideology.

It is OK, most women have experienced shaming by other women, whether they are sex workers or simply pretty or maybe wanted to stay home and raise their children. Most women will carry on to do what is best for them in spite of those negative nannies. This would be an appropriate place to insert a funny picture with the caption "What about the children!!??"

Margaret Thatcher would be proud. "There is no such thing as a society. There are only individual men andwomen", she said. And your words here echo her sentiments exactly. We are all just individuals floating around in vacuums. Society does not influence our choices, no no. If a woman "chooses" to stay home with her children she has in no way been influenced by thousands of years of intense societal expectation and pressure to do so. No, she just came up with that idea all on her own. And if a woman "chooses" to sell her body for men to use sexually, she also just came up with that idea all on her own. All that she had been taught since she was a little girl, all of those fairy tales, advertisements, tv shows, etc. that taught her a woman's primary concern should be to be pretty and sexy, they had no influence on her at all. She just thought of that stuff all herself.

Question: why are you reading a leftist news site? Your arguments are clearly rooted in right wing neoliberal ideology.

Are you saying, then, that no woman is capable of making up her own mind, or making a choice? Or is there a list of acceptable grown up choices that are permitted to her?

There are many men who become the stay at home parent, so at some point someone out there thinks it is better to raise their own children rather than institutionalize them in a baby care business.

It was very unacceptable for anyone other than a Real Woman to stay at home with the kids not that long ago. Some women objected to being stereotyped as incapable of choosing to what they considered best for their children, and did it anyway. Some women refused to be shamed, in other words.

It is a real thing, this shaming, I find that the attitudes by some socalled 'radical feminists' are not much different when they talk about stay at home wives/mothers than when they are talking about sex workers. In both cases they think they know what is best for either group, and plan to come in to rescue them.

I chose not to have children, so i guess I stopped listening to what society wanted and expected me to do quite some time ago.

I do have a sense of humour tho, hence my post which appears to offend.

I can say, if there is a list of acceptable occupations and preoccupations for women, it would be nice to see it. I used to know. I used to be one of the shamers, after all, having pursued the appropriate education and work experiences, so I knew how much better i was than other women who chose to stay at home and raise their kids. Probably because they were incapable of either doing anything else or choosing anything else, due to all that societal pressure (the shaming society i guess just wasn't loud enough, because surely they should have been ashamed by their decision? )

They aren't. Many more are shut out of jobs, or full-time employment with benefits, because of the lacklustre economy and all the neoliberal cuts to government services and funding for social, arts, science and other important sources of good and socially-useful employment.

It is OK, most women have experienced shaming by other women, whether they are sex workers or simply pretty or maybe wanted to stay home and raise their children. Most women will carry on to do what is best for them in spite of those negative nannies. This would be an appropriate place to insert a funny picture with the caption "What about the children!!??"

Margaret Thatcher would be proud. "There is no such thing as a society. There are only individual men andwomen", she said. And your words here echo her sentiments exactly. We are all just individuals floating around in vacuums. Society does not influence our choices, no no. If a woman "chooses" to stay home with her children she has in no way been influenced by thousands of years of intense societal expectation and pressure to do so. No, she just came up with that idea all on her own. And if a woman "chooses" to sell her body for men to use sexually, she also just came up with that idea all on her own. All that she had been taught since she was a little girl, all of those fairy tales, advertisements, tv shows, etc. that taught her a woman's primary concern should be to be pretty and sexy, they had no influence on her at all. She just thought of that stuff all herself.

Question: why are you reading a leftist news site? Your arguments are clearly rooted in right wing neoliberal ideology.

The link below illustrates the real anti-feminist right-wing ideology that Fortunate is describing as shaming. Doesn't matter if the object of the shaming is the working mother or the stay-at-home mother, the result is the same; this is not how progressive women with differing ideologies should debate. Elle, you've managed to twist what a babbler has written into some right-wing trope worthy of criticism in order to insult the babbler and undermine the points she makes. Please don't engage in this type of behavior. It is unworthy of the Feminist Forum and the spirit of rabble.

Until reading these posts, I had no idea that Canadian women were waging an arduous struggle against "radical feminists" for the right to stay at home and raise their kids.

Actually, there is debate among feminists about whether the choice to stay at home is a "feminist" position. In reality, the conversation should be framed as a class issue, not as a return to dark ages of housewifery. A prominent feminist I know was criticized by some of her colleagues for choosing to stay at home with her newborn daughter. That she could choose to do so was a question of privilege, not feminism, but the criticism was framed as the latter. Like issues of race and racism, mainstream feminism fails often to address issues of class, largely because the face of "mainstream" feminism is white, well-educated and economically privileged. bell hooks is very eloquent on the issue, and is worth reading on just about any issue.

A lot of feminism in Québec has been very much tied up with the struggle here, both in terms of the class struggle and the struggle against national oppression. Of course, most of the spokeswomen, even if trade unionists, tend to be educated, either because they were working in public sector jobs that demanded education, or, if from the needle trades or such, self-educated via labour and socialist movements. Also mostly white, but either nationally-oppressed francophones or immigrant women who endured multiple oppressions. It is somewhat different from the usual "North American" model, and especially the US model, with the great weakness of the labour and socialist movements down there.

Until reading these posts, I had no idea that Canadian women were waging an arduous struggle against "radical feminists" for the right to stay at home and raise their kids.

Actually, there is debate among feminists about whether the choice to stay at home is a "feminist" position. In reality, the conversation should be framed as a class issue, not as a return to dark ages of housewifery. A prominent feminist I know was criticized by some of her colleagues for choosing to stay at home with her newborn daughter. That she could choose to do so was a question of privilege, not feminism, but the criticism was framed as the latter. Like issues of race and racism, mainstream feminism fails often to address issues of class, largely because the face of "mainstream" feminism is white, well-educated and economically privileged. bell hooks is very eloquent on the issue, and is worth reading on just about any issue.

You may be interested as well in the articles by Dr. Magnanti, especially this one

I don't believe I was twisting her words. I was merely pointing out that, in my opinion, her arguments are rooted in neoliberal ideology. I suppose the tone was harsh, and I apologize for that. However, it is incredibly irritating to me that women who claim to be on the left but support the sex industry are so blind to the inherent contradiction of this position. They usually agree that, for example, violence in the media or in the home normalizes and therefore helps to perpetuate the cycle of violence in real life- in other words- that we are social creatures whose ideas, perceptions, behaviours, and CHOICES are shaped by the people and culture around us. Yet, when it comes to women, especially when it comes to women who claim to choose to work in the sex industry, somehow it only becomes about individual choices, and the cultural context in which these choices are made gets erased. Another inherent contradiction that I find leftists who support the sex industry tend to make is that they will fight against free market capitalism and the idea that every last human interaction should be commodified, yet they support the commodificatioin of sex. I JUST DON'T GET IT!

I don't believe I was twisting her words. I was merely pointing out that, in my opinion, her arguments are rooted in neoliberal ideology. I suppose the tone was harsh, and I apologize for that.

However, it is incredibly irritating to me that women who claim to be on the left but support the sex industry are so blind to the inherent contradiction of this position. They usually agree that, for example, violence in the media or in the home normalizes and therefore helps to perpetuate the cycle of violence in real life- in other words- that we are social creatures whose ideas, perceptions, behaviours, and CHOICES are shaped by the people and culture around us.

Yet, when it comes to women, especially when it comes to women who claim to choose to work in the sex industry, somehow it only becomes about individual choices, and the cultural context in which these choices are made gets erased. Another inherent contradiction that I find leftists who support the sex industry tend to make is that they will fight against free market capitalism and the idea that every last human interaction should be commodified, yet they support the commodificatioin of sex.

I JUST DON'T GET IT!

It may be because you are trying to fit every single woman into a very narrow ideal of what all women should be, according to that list i mentioned before. Here are the things that are acceptable for women to do or think or believe, and here is a (much longer) list of things that they cannot do or think or believe. The trouble you have is that individual women are not buying into the group mentality of societal pressure, even if that pressure is that new classical PC thought. It is OK to work 60 hours a week in an executive or nontraditional occupation, but it is NOT OK to work 60 hours a week maintaining a household and raising children. But not only is it not OK, steps will be taken to ensure she understands that she has no one's approval for her choice.

I do not see a big difference between the choice to raise children and the choice to do sex work, in the eyes of the law (neither is illegal) nor the eyes of society (mostly frowned upon by feminists) lol.

Do pro sex worker leftists really fight against the free market capitalism? I mean, do they not support the independent business owner who only commodifies their own labour in an effort to not have to become someone else's employee? I am not sure how many types of work there are out there that doesn't commodify something, in some cases things that people (maybe people who don't have to work for themselves for a living), may think of as non-commodifiable things. I am thinking about art (no graphic art for advertising or similar things, that would be commodifying one's talent as an artist perhaps?) No dancer should be paid, as that is the commodification of art and beauty and music?

See I am not sure where the line is supposed to be drawn. I for one have failed to see myself say that violence in media is OK or that it excuses and explains violence at home. I suppose I would be guilty of reminding the poster that violence has existed in the home and public before TV and movies existed, and so it was in the home prior to it being shown on TV and in movies. TV doesn't give people the idea, people give people the idea.

I am not sure, as I am not really a label, but more of a whole person, so am not aware of what I am supposed to be thinking or saying or doing as a new liberal. :)

But i think you are making a point here that women are choosing to be sex workers because society around them is telling them it is OK? Really? Because what I see, in media, in other people's words, in words posted here, in law makers making decisions that will affect the general population, in laws that tell landlords that they will be prosecuted if they knowingly rent apartments to sex workers, and a dozen other kinds of things, all those add up to society telling women and men to NOT become sex workers, that the stigma they will carry is too big, and that they will never be able to tell anyone because of these stereotypes.

I am always interested in what people think about sex work in general, because I am always intrigued when someone doesn't parrot out all the stereotypes when they tell us what they think. The same with the titled topic, if someone takes the time to do proper research, which includes analysis of the reality of that law when it is in place, and the total lack of success in spite of how it is being marketed, then how can they believably come back to say it is a success without providing the actual data to support that? Because, those who comment against it, can come up with actual research reports. When someone proclaims that sports events cause sex trafficking and even the police are reported as saying it didn't happen, where are they after the event to say, oh sorry, we got it wrong? NO where. Media included.

For myself, i just don't get why people want to try to make sex into an evil unnatural activity that cannot come at a price. But it is ok to put a price on art, on music, on dance, and on the human form (modeling), picking up garbage, taking bodily fluids out of a person is somehow OK if you work as a lab technician but not OK if you are a sex worker, massaging the musles is OK if a massage therapist, but touching a body for money is not OK if you are a sex worker, talking to someone about their problems is OK if you are a counselor but NOT OK if you are a sex worker, Or even dancing is OK if you are not a stripper, too.

As my partner and I watched the media coverage of the Supreme Court decision she turned to me and said, "Those girls should have been more careful of what they wished for." The decision has opened the door for the conservative government to take any one of a number of tacks regarding the regulation of prostitution in Canada as unfettered decriminalization has always been an impossible dream, a myth.

I have not studied the Nordic Model but the little I know of it makes it clear that the approach has nothing to do with protecting street prostitutes from violence; you don't benefit a group of people by depriving them of a source of income (notice I said people, not criminals), you only increase their hardships unless an alternative source of money is made available. What's the job market like for former street prostitutes?

In Canada most prostitution takes place indoors (I suspect the same holds true in cold Nordic countries) so the Model has no effect on the bulk of the business so what's the point? Enforced invisibility perhaps but not protection. Sweep the streets and everyone will go home happy – the standard approach to street prostitution in Toronto whenever a resident group kicks up a fuss.

Of course our feds like the Nordic Model and if the government brings it in we can say goodbye to the old rat bastard laws and hello to the new rat bastard laws. Genius!

Meanwhile the silly season has opened for prostitution in Toronto with Giorgio Mammoliti resurrecting his build brothels on the Island and create a red light district plan and his new idea of allowing strip clubs to create/build adjoining brothels (I think he's even described the clubs as Toronto's potential new partners in the sex industry). Mammoliti's plans have nothing to do with protecting women from anyone but they could make Toronto a lot of money and money is what prostitution has always really been about.

He is someone who is trying to make policy without any clear idea of what is actually happening. There is no need for dancers to be under pressure of providing sex act services in the back rooms of SCs, when a little bit of common sense (or asking someone) would tell him that the only ideal places to brothelize are the massage parlours. There is absolutely no amenities in SCs that can accomodate sex worker services in a way that could possibly satisfy even basic hygiene or trash disposal. Everything is already set up in massage parlours: private rooms, furniture, waste disposal, and showers. Also, sexual services are already being provided at those venues.

This is like going into a legit massage parlour and saying they are going to change the licensing for the business to allow for sexual services. RMTs don't plan to nor want to provide those services, and a license change will only send the wrong signal to clients.

#167 If by on topic you mean that the acceptable comments are only in support of defending an indefensible model, then yes, you will have trouble staying on topic.

A minority of posts in this thread are about the Nordic Model. That effectively conceals the debate. Five pages of posts vanished for a few months and they have now reappeared. All anyone has to do is read the first half page of posts to see how the discussion was completely derailed. I am not going to put effort in a debate to have my words buried in a trashed thread so nobody has a hope in hell of following the discussion.

Whether information comes from Melissa Farley, Harper or the Pope himself it doesn't make it automatically right or wrong. The SCC said parliament can make prostitution itself illegal so your interpretation of the ruling is inaccurate.

wrote:

I just keep trying to bring you back to the facts, the research and away from the false and deliberately misleading opinion pieces

You accuse me of lying but you can't quote a single one; you put words in my mouth then disagree with "me"; I could send you to facts and research debunking climate change but that wouldn't make them right. It's not possible to analyse research in this thread so flinging out link lists is pointless.

fortunate wrote:

…... at the end of the day, if there are no new laws, your life will carry on with no change. Whether clients are charged as criminals or not, there will be no impact on your life as it is today.

That's not true. I don't live in a vacuum. I believe I have a responsibility to support survivors of prostitution, especially aboriginal women who are so often silenced and ignored. I have a responsibility to my daughter and to generations of women to come to create a world that empowers them. I have a responsibility to myself to be a decent human being that doesn't throw other women under the bus. I am my values. I am socialist and a feminist, not a libertarian.

I look at countries where prostitution has been legitimized and I see women who are humiliated and abused for the benefit of johns. I look at countries where prostitution has been fully criminalized and I see women who are humiliated and abused for the benefit of johns. I look at the countries where prostitution has been decriminalized for sellers and criminalized for buyers and dealers and I see women who are humiliated and abused for the benefit of johns.

The first type is neoliberal and wants the industry to expand despite the harms to women, the second type is authoritarian and wants to punish some women while keeping some high-end women on-call for themselves, the third type is fighting to end the abuse of women. I pick door number 3.

Like issues of race and racism, mainstream feminism fails often to address issues of class, largely because the face of "mainstream" feminism is white, well-educated and economically privileged. bell hooks is very eloquent on the issue, and is worth reading on just about any issue.

Bell Hooks is an American feminist whose work focused on the situation in the United States. While Canada certainly has all kinds of minorities that we have abused at different points in our past, from the perspective of Canadian feminism Aboriginal women are the most abused and neglected group.

Most marginalized women don't have the time, energy, nor the access to education to become a political force capable of forcing change. That is why it is so important to amplify their voices here at babble.

Quote:

Prostitution is not a traditional activity of Aboriginal women. The state has tried to disconnect Aboriginal women from our communities, our children, our families, our traditional roles, our language, and our culture. These incidents all contribute to the disconnection Aboriginal women experience from their own bodies and sexuality that is inflicted on them through prostitution.

Aboriginal women are grossly overrepresented in prostitution and among the women who have been murdered in prostitution. It is not helpful to divide women in prostitution into those who “choose” and those who are “forced” into prostitution. In most cases, Aboriginal women are recruited for prostitution as girls and/or feel they have no other option due to poverty and abuse. It is the sex industry that encourages women to view prostitution as their chosen identity. ……...

…..We know that Aboriginal women will mostly remain on the street because racism and poverty selects them for the most exploitative forms of prostitution, wherever they occur. But the more important point is that brothels and massage parlours are not acceptable spaces for Aboriginal women and girls. The state has pushed Aboriginal women from one institution to another – residential schools, foster homes, group homes, and prisons, to name a few. NWAC refuses to accept brothels as the new official institution for Aboriginal women and girls and we refuse to accept that prostitution is the solution to addressing women’s poverty.

………………..As long as Aboriginal women and girls are bought and sold in prostitution, Aboriginal women will never have equality."

Whether information comes from Melissa Farley, Harper or the Pope himself it doesn't make it automatically right or wrong. The SCC said parliament can make prostitution itself illegal so your interpretation of the ruling is inaccurate.

wrote:

I just keep trying to bring you back to the facts, the research and away from the false and deliberately misleading opinion pieces

You accuse me of lying but you can't quote a single one; you put words in my mouth then disagree with "me"; I could send you to facts and research debunking climate change but that wouldn't make them right. It's not possible to analyse research in this thread so flinging out link lists is pointless.

I do not feel a parsing of someone's post line by line, with rebuttal is necessary when i mention misleading or false statements, i gave more than enough examples for you to follow my meaning. As well, there were more than enough links to follow. When I say Melissa Farley is a liar, with a 115 page report about it all giving a dozen different examples, i do expect that before my comment is dismissed, someone is taking the time to learn about these lies.

When you are making references directly to people like that as 'proof' of what is or isn't happening in the world, then yes, it definitely does matter if those claims are wrong, and have been proven to be wrong, multiple times over by multiple researchers and references.

It would indeed be like sending me to research about climate change, if all you do is send me to a person with no research, no studies and no scientific facts to back up their claims. That is what you expect me to do: listen to you link and quote Farley, the pope or Harper on topics they have no knowledge of, based on research that they have deliberately changed in order to make their points.

If Farley had simply commented on the facts, and not actually changed data and misquoted conclusions, we wouldn't even be discussing this and she would not have been reported to get her removed from the APA.

I don't care if people disagree on the what direction that they want laws, regulations or the future to go. I do care if they try to use misleading and falsified data to support their point of view.

Without burrowing back into past posts, i will again refer you to your comment that you know how sex workers advertise. You made a list, including how many mid-level (can't remember the reference) apparently don't have to advertise because they have all these regular clients coming by regularly. Since i know that is completely untrue, i wondered why you even said it, and wondered where you got your information. A lie is a lie, unless you can prove it to be true. And since i know that is untrue, then why lie about something so minor? I don't get it.

You want to protect sex workers, without admitting that sex workers aren't going through all the things you are listing out because they are sex workers, (if indeed any one of them actually goes thru anything), they go thru things because they are (mostly) women. Just as health care professionals can be assaulted by patients, and constuction workers can be smuggled into the country to do slave work, and school teachers can sometimes be killed by students. Stuff in this world happens to all kinds of people that has absolutely nothing to do with being a sex worker.

Explain why, if sex work is completely criminalized, that is still not a solution to the perceived dangers of sex work? Do you understand that sex workers are made more powerless in countries with 100 % criminalization, and that one other big reason they are afraid of police is that police can and do assault them? Do you understand that police are not usually there to help them, in the cases of these sting operations, due to it being illegal, many end up with criminal records? But to get there, first the officer allows them to show skin, touch them, in some cases go thru to the end of a session, and then, from time to time, the others enter the room, the sex worker is photographed, and in at least one case, told she had to remain nude while all these people rifled through her things, took photos, and interrogated her, for up to a half hour. Do you understand that many of them get filmed during these operations, all in the interest of 'stopping prostitution?"

And all that is done because the anti prostitution advocates out there want it stopped, at any cost, to save the poor sex workers. Who have just undergone something that is supposed to be reserved for hard core criminals, not victims. Because they are either hardcore criminals (since they are being treated as such) or they are victims. But 100% criminalization means that your victims are getting targetted by the police, and that sounds a lot like 'blame the victim' to me, where the victim suffers more than the real criminal.

Except there is no criminal in those countries, because in these cases the sex worker comes to see a police officer. meaning she is the one who's going to be charged, thrown in jail, and possibly fined a thousand or more dollars. And guess how she's going to get the money to pay the fine? REad the article about teen sex workers in NYC, one of the boys will tell you all about that.

And so i see what you were referring to by the 1% now, again very naieve regarding this business. I am not a fan of the Occupy claims, mostly because I work for a living, and can't spend weeks at a time sitting around debating how other people who also work have it so easy.

The 1 % would be the guys spending 10,000 to take someone out for a weekend, the Spitzers. They are certainly not spending 200-300 an hour on sex workers, those would be very mid level to that kind of guy. 200-300 is the working guy, the basic mid level sex worker providing to the guys who don't just have money to throw around. Ask these guys if that is a lot of money, and they will be the first to say their money is 'hard earned' and not meant to be tossed away like the 1% would consider that kind of cash. They are not spending their rent, but they aren't using their spare change either. It is misleading at best to imply that this is only for the rich, and that is why the middle class and upper class sex worker's opinions and concerns should be ignored.....as if they too are in the 1% and therefore should have everything they've 'hard earned' taken away from them.

At the end of the day, this is what the result will be, not being saved from danger, but thrown into financial distress.

The SCC said parliament can make prostitution itself illegal so your interpretation of the ruling is inaccurate.

No, the Court did not say that.

It said that:

- Prostitution itself is not illegal under the existing regime (paras. 5 and others)

- "Parliament is not precluded from imposing limits on where and how prostitution may be conducted, as long as it does so in a way that does not infringe the constitutional rights of prostitutes." (paras. 5 and 165)

You may argue that Parliament can make prostitution itself illegal — it's a perfectly reasonable argument to be made. A reasonable argument can also be made that Parliament cannot do that, as that would entail the same effects that have caused the SCC to declare the 3 provisions to be unconstitutional.

My own conclusion: I have seen no obvious slam-dunk argument yet showing that Parliament can't just ban the sale of sex for money - period. The particular Charter arguments made in the Bedford case wouldn't apply in the same way - because the Court, throughout the Bedford decision - relied on the fact that the sale of sex is not unlawful.

So please can we decide which thread we're using for what? Or better yet, just shut down all but (say) 2 of them, one in the sex workers forum, one in FF?

ETA: Bacchus, the conversation starts at post #21 in the Bedford thread and continues in many posts thereafter, FYI. I'd be interested in knowing how you see that as well, though I gather you're about as well trained in the law as me (full disclosure - I know nothing)?

I don't believe I was twisting her words. I was merely pointing out that, in my opinion, her arguments are rooted in neoliberal ideology. I suppose the tone was harsh, and I apologize for that. However, it is incredibly irritating to me that women who claim to be on the left but support the sex industry are so blind to the inherent contradiction of this position. They usually agree that, for example, violence in the media or in the home normalizes and therefore helps to perpetuate the cycle of violence in real life- in other words- that we are social creatures whose ideas, perceptions, behaviours, and CHOICES are shaped by the people and culture around us. Yet, when it comes to women, especially when it comes to women who claim to choose to work in the sex industry, somehow it only becomes about individual choices, and the cultural context in which these choices are made gets erased. Another inherent contradiction that I find leftists who support the sex industry tend to make is that they will fight against free market capitalism and the idea that every last human interaction should be commodified, yet they support the commodificatioin of sex. I JUST DON'T GET IT!

I agree that there are contradictions, many of them, but that's the way of complex issues dissected by people who, under one label or another, represent not a monolithic view but an incredibly diverse one. Western thought has been obsessed with labeling and categorizing for so long it has become the hallmark of rational thought. But rational thought is so much more because people are complex and so are their ideas.

I don't want to presume to preach some zen-like understanding of simplicity within complexity, but when we dichotomize in debate, which is the standard, the norm, we lose so much and end up with a rancorous discourse that benefits no one.

No, I'm not advocating a relativistic post-modern approach, but my job here would be easier (not that my ease is an objective) if people could be firm in their ideas but open to understanding where others come from. Of course, if that became babble reality my job would be reduced to blocking spammers and trolls.

And so i see what you were referring to by the 1% now, again very naieve regarding this business. I am not a fan of the Occupy claims, mostly because I work for a living, and can't spend weeks at a time sitting around debating how other people who also work have it so easy.

wow......mighty big of you to trivialize and dismiss 10's of thousands!!!!!! pffft

Actually under where and how an outright ban is easy..ie everywhere and always. That is a completely consistent statutory framework. Bedford is not a s. 15 case, it is a very smart s. 7 case. It is about allowing sex for but crippling and making dangerous dangerous working conditions at the same time. An outright ban is consistent.

Actually under where and how an outright ban is easy..ie everywhere and always. That is a completely consistent statutory framework. Bedford is not a s. 15 case, it is a very smart s. 7 case. It is about allowing sex for but crippling and making dangerous dangerous working conditions at the same time. An outright ban is consistent.

I kind of wish you would decloak. Your posts are pretty tedious, but you clearly are very agitated and even obsessed with these issues. Are you a sex worker, or the mother of a sex worker? You have someone like Susan on the back foot because she actually uses her real name, whereas you hide behind a preudonym without making it clear what axe you're grinding. There's nothing wrong with using pseudonyms on the web, particularly if you're conscious that potential employers might Google you, but you have attacked Susan based on stuff from her personal web site without being at all clear about what hidey-hole you're sniping from. Yes, you are anti-sexwork, but why? Why so persistent?